


Always

by Anonymous



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, But Cas Will Be There For Him, Castiel (Supernatural) to the Rescue, Domestic Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt Sam Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sad, Sam Faces A Long Road To Getting Better, Sam Winchester Has Emotional Health Issues, Sam Winchester Has Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-27
Updated: 2019-03-27
Packaged: 2019-12-18 13:40:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18250985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: There are things even Heaven can’t heal.





	Always

**Author's Note:**

> If you find domestic violence, even _off screen_ , triggering, please don’t read any further.
> 
> There is no happy conclusion to this story; what happens to Sam will take time and support and love to heal, which he will have in oodles in the form of his guardian angel, but he’s at the start of a very long road.
> 
> Set in season 9, after Dean leaves and Sam is still trying to cope with everything that happened while he was possessed by Gadreel.

It’s been a long time since Sam felt the rumble of the Impala, the way it went straight through to your bones; leaning your head against the window made you feel like your skull was getting rattled lightly against the glass.

As a kid, he used to do it for fun, loving the weird-not-quite-uncomfortable sensation, and the way it made his voice sound when he spoke or when he laughed.

He isn’t laughing now, and he rests his head there for very different reasons, and tries to close his eyes.

He can’t even say that he hurts, anymore, because Cas took care of that. His body, anyway; all the bruises are gone, the fresh ones and the ones yellowing and starting to fade.

The scar along his jaw, that’s gone too; so is the badly healed break in his wrist that made it hard for him to hold anything in that hand.

If you looked at him now, Sam fancies, you’d never know anything bad ever happened to him.

Or maybe, you would.

Either way, he knows it, and Cas knows it.

And even though if Cas didn’t that would mean Sam would still be _there_ , there’s something gnawing and terrible about the angel knowing everything that happened.

Everything Sam allowed himself to endure.

He can hear a voice he thinks might be his own, he isn’t sure, telling him that isn’t what happened.

But another voice is louder, and it sounds like Ryan.

It sounds like someone else, as well.

Sam bites into his lip, and tries to concentrate on the _thrum_ of the car around them, tries to let it drown out _all_ the voices.

There’s nothing he really wants to hear any of them say.

And then Cas is pulling over, and he’s turning Sam towards him, and cupping his face, and asking him not to do that.

Sam doesn’t know what he means until he tastes blood in his mouth and realises he’s bitten clean through his lip.

Cas’s eyes glow, and the pain and the blood are gone a second after he registers them, but the angel’s Grace can’t reach far enough inside him to take away the worst of it.

Can’t touch that hollowed out place that used to hold what made him _him_.

Can’t fill it back up again.

Maybe that is going to take more than a miracle.

And he doesn’t know he said that out loud until Cas says his name.

And tells Sam it won’t take a miracle. It will just take him, himself, because if there is one thing Cas is sure of, it’s that Sam is stronger than he knows.

He simply has to believe it again and, until he can, Cas will believe it for him.

Cas will believe _in_ him.

Always.

++

It’s hard being alone.

Sam’s pretty sure that first time, when he left for Stanford, wasn’t this bad. Even before he found Jess, but maybe it’s because he was so determined to succeed, to make what (who) he’d left behind _worth_ it, that he just didn’t notice how much it hurt.

He works every shift at the supermarket he can get, and not just because he needs the money; the more time he spends there, the less time he’s by himself in the crappy one bedroom apartment he managed to rent, with a busted fridge and no heating.

The less time he has to think.

But somehow, even so, Dean’s never far from his mind. 

He wonders where his brother is now, if he’s okay, and then wonders why he should give a damn.

But Cas…. He shouldn’t have left Cas alone in the bunker. Shouldn’t have left him with no way to get in touch, in case he needed help, in case something happened.

Then he checks himself. Cas’ll do just fine by himself. The only problems he’s had in the past few years have been _them_.

It’s not a great feeling to know you’re practically a walking curse.

As if to prove it, he bangs into somebody then, and knocks the basket clean out of their hands, and jars shatter, condiment splashes over the bags of pasta on the bottom shelves, and he finds himself staring into a concerned pair of brown eyes.

“Sorry,” he mutters. Yeah, he’s a walking clutz of a curse.

The guy grins, warmly, shrugs. “Hey, it’s fine. You, uh…. You okay? You looked a little like you were carrying a weight, there.”

He’s the first person to have shown Sam kindness since he snuck out of the bunker while Cas was trying to figure out how to make an egg white omelette because he’d noticed Sam wasn’t eating.

Sam isn’t sure he deserves it.

“I’m fine,” he says, and it sounds hollow even to him.

“Yeah,” the guy says, and Sam is shocked to see how grateful he feels not to be believed. “Look, Sam?” He points to Sam’s name badge.

Sam nods.

“I’m Ryan. I’m not weird, I’m not some creepy stalker, I’m just...somebody who knows what it’s like when things just pile on top of you and you can’t get out from under. So, maybe when you finish your shift here, we can get a drink? Not hitting on you, I swear to God. I just…. You look like you could use a friend.”

Yeah, he could. He left one behind, and he knows Cas will be frantic, and he hates that he did that, but...

Cas will be better off without him, and maybe by himself Sam willl have a chance to start over, to shake off the Winchester legacy of ruining everything he touches.

Maybe he just needs to see how it goes.

“Okay,” he says. “Ryan. Okay.”


End file.
